Norman Ellison

Norman Ellison was a US Army private who served in the US 2nd Armored Division during World War II. He was best-known for being the only American survivor of the Battle of Hagenohsen.

Biography
Norman Ellison was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and he enlisted in the US Army in 1945, during World War II. He was initially assigned as a clerk typist, but he was transferred to the US 2nd Armored Division at the last minute, as the bow gunner for the tank Fury had been killed during the drive into Nazi Germany in April 1945. Ellison had served in the army for just eight weeks and had never seen the inside of a tank before, and he was hazed and harrassed by his crewmates, including his commanding officer, Don Collier. Ellison was berated for not shooting Hitler Youth soldiers because of their youth; those same soldiers took out the lead tank in the American platoon as it advanced on Kirchohsen. He was again berated for refusing to shoot at dead soldiers to ensure that they were truly dead; Collier had Ellison shoot a captured German soldier for wearing an American uniform, as it violated the Geneva Convention. Ellison was repeatedly traumatized in an attempt to harden him, but he came to "like" killing during the Battle of Kirchohsen, when he killed several Waffen-SS soldiers after seeing several hanging children, victims of the SS. During his time in the town, Ellison started a brief romance with a young German girl named Emma, at whose house the squad was staying. Collier told Ellison to take her into the bedroom before he did, as Emma had come to like Ellison for his piano skills and his youth. The two made love, and the boorish soldier Grady Travis would bully Ellison and Emma upon entering the kitchen where they were eating breakfast with Collier and Emma's older cousin. After a tense breakfast filled with arguments, Travis shoved Ellison out of the house as he bade Emma farewell, and Ellison was traumatized after seeing that Emma was among the dead of an artillery bombardment just minutes after leaving. He saw the brutality of the Germans, so he became an adept member of the squad, being hardened. In the end, he volunteered to assist the squad when they made their last stand against an SS battalion by themselves, and he survived after Collier told him to hide in a crater under the tank. Ellison was spotted by a Waffen-SS soldier, but the soldier spared him, as both of them were young men who were fighting in wars that were not theirs, and because Ellison was defenseless. The next day, Ellison was rescued by medics, who called him a hero.